THE SOURCE BLOG

Spotlight on State

On October 15, 2018, Health Affairs hosted a forum in Sacramento called “Improving Care for Californians.” Two unifying themes emerged from the three panels. First, there is a growing tension between integration and consolidation in health care. Some panelists presented data that demonstrated that integrated health delivery networks often provide better and more integrated care, but that when healthcare delivery markets become highly concentrated, prices tend to increase. Second, the panelists discussed substantial improvements in healthcare in California, but all agreed that substantial work remains to be done to improve …

Building on the momentum from 2017’s passage of two laws to increase transparency in drug prices, California’s SB 17 and Nevada’s SB 539, in 2018, 22 states considered and 5 states passed legislation to require more transparency of drug pricing (see map and tables below). While transparency laws that simply require reporting of drug prices to the public may seem less effective than many of the other laws passed in 2018 to address pharmaceutical prices, they represent an important step to increasing competition in the pharmaceutical market and may have …

In this installment of The Source’s Spotlight on State Drug Legislation, we focus on price gouging prohibitions. In 2017, Maryland became a pioneer among states addressing rising drug costs when it passed the first law (HB 631) to prevent price gouging in the pharmaceutical market. At the start of 2018, fifteen states were poised to follow in Maryland’s footsteps and adopt new or strengthen existing price gouging laws to include pharmaceuticals (see Map and Table 1). In April 2018, however, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals declared Maryland’s law unconstitutional, …

Updated 10/10/18: Since the original publication, the federal government enacted laws to ensure a federal ban on pharmaceutical gag-clauses. On Wednesday, October 10, President Trump signed into law both bills passed by Congress to ban gag clauses in pharmacy contracts: the Patient Right to Know Drug Prices Act (S.2554) affects employer-sponsored and individual drug plans and the Know the Lowest Price Act (S.2553) will affect Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage plans. Trump expects an immediate impact on drug prices and remarked at the signing: “All our citizens deserve to know the …

Prescription drug spending remains an important issue to many Americans. According to a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the affordability of prescription drugs is the top health care priority for voters.[1] In response to public outcry, many states have taken up the mantle of improving affordability and access to prescription medications. In 2018, only two states with legislative sessions, South Carolina and Alabama, did not consider legislation with the aim of reducing prescription drug costs or access. Forty-four states[2] introduced bills and twenty-nine states passed legislation to increase oversight …

In the most recent legislative sessions, states have demonstrated they are increasingly willing to use their power to target prescription drug prices. In 2018, only two states with active legislative sessions, North Carolina and Alabama, did not consider legislation with the aim of reducing prescription drug costs. Of the forty-four states[1] that introduced bills, twenty-nine states passed legislation to address rising drug costs (see 2018 Legislation Map). While the states were united in the objective of making prescriptions more affordable, the methods the laws employed varied substantially. For example, many …